Students work, learn on public lands

Eight students from the Eastern Sierras are gaining experience in resource management while improving public lands through work with the Youth Conservation Corps.

YCC crew members from the Owens Valley are working on community projects, including projects on public lands for six weeks this summer, said Becky Hutto, contact representative for the Bureau of Land Management’s Bishop Field Office. (text continues below)

The students work on stabilizing an outbuilding at the Conway Ranch historical site

“This program will help give a direction in future outdoor resource management, range conservation and park ranger experience, along with several other career opportunity insights for our youth,” she said.

Offered through the community services department of IMACA (Inyo Mono Advocates for Community Action) in Bishop, the YCC provides youth with job skills training, a sense of community responsibility and leadership skills. Additionally, a primary goal of the program is designed to assist the participants with the development of a positive work ethic, she said.YCC crew members have installed fencing in the Granite Mountain Wilderness; rehabilitated an old burn area on the Warren Bench; and cleaned up trash clean in Poleta Pit, an off-highway vehicle and target shooting site. “Six truckloads of trash were taken to the dump,” Hutto said.

Crew members also have pulled weeds at campgrounds and working on the tree moats to hold water. They helped lay a 600-foot waterline in a campground and installed 30 new campfire rings in Crowley Lake Campground

For a final task, they will help rebuild and stabilize a barn at the Conway Ranch historical site.

Students sort through wood rafters and planks while stabilizing the Conway Ranch site